Conscience first then the Church

Pope Francis on Saturday reaffirmed the "primacy" of using one's conscience to navigate tough moral questions in his first comments since he was publicly accused of spreading heresy by emphasizing conscience over hard and fast Catholic rules....

Primacy of conscience took primacy at Vatican II: "their faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (magisterium), and obeying it, receives not the mere word of human beings, but truly the word of God." (Vatican II, The Church (1964), §12)